Into the Dark
by Havoc
Summary: Spike darkest desires are nothing Buffy could have ever guessed.


Into the Dark

_Yeah, we're gonna fight  
We do it every night  
Baby, when you scratch  
You know I'm gonna bite  
You can make me die  
I can make you cry  
Opposites attract  
That's the reason why  
No one else could make you feel  
Like I do, I do, I do  
No one else gets that deep inside you  
As I do, baby  
Our love is a bed of nails  
Love hurts good on a bed of nails_

from "Bed of Nails" Alice Cooper

It isn't like I don't know how love can be, how dark it can turn and how quickly. Hell, it was love ever being anything but dark that seemed strange to me. Dru was the first woman that I had ever been with, the first one who taught me how to please a woman, and that changes a man, even if he wasn't a man when he finally got some. She had some interesting tastes, some bloody tastes, and they're mine now too, whether or not I was born with them. We spent generations together, and by the time she left me for the last time, I knew every inch of her soul and could please her in all the ways a person could dream of, and some that were probably only ever ours. So, when I say that I understand how twisted love can get, how it can drag a person down into places that he never imagined being, well, it's best to believe it. That kind of love, the midnight beauty of bruises and chains, that's second nature to me. How can it be a perversion if it's the only thing that I've ever known?

No, I know what the real sickness is. It's that when I look at the Slayer, I don't wanna kill her anymore, or even fight her. No, now when I look at her, I imagine touching her for hours, all soft and gentle, like I've never had it before. Figured I could learn a whole new way of torturing someone, touching her so slow that she never knows when it will end. Thought she would be the one to show me another way to love somebody, a thousand other ways to love somebody. It's all kinky when it's new, it's all wild when every new touch is like nothing that's ever been done before. I wanted to love her like that, like it was new to both of us. Lost in the light, lost somewhere I've never been before. Even the thought made me hard, picturing her under me while all I did was touch the silk of her skin, human warmth under my hand for the first time ever. That's what I wanted. Something light, something clean.

Nothing's clean anymore, nothing's light. Nothing's like how I thought it would be. Don't rightly know what I did think, but I know it wasn't like this. The first times, those first few kisses once she came back, they seemed vanilla enough, all sweet and gentle, with her hunger burning through everything, and her hands everywhere, scalding me with her human heat. Okay, so she was a bitch after both of them, running away like she couldn't believe who she was tasting, who was hard against her, but it wasn't like it was a real surprise. How long have we been dancing around this, our every fight just another piece in the puzzle of what it would be like to tangle ourselves together in some other way? Of course she ran, this went against anything that ever made sense.

I called her on the running, you can bet that I did, but I figured it was only a matter of time before she got with the picture and realized that I was the one for her. The one who understood. The one who loved her in spite of everything, the running, the insults, the denials. The one who could look at her and only love her, without any tangled mess of guilt and obligation and repentance. In other words, I'm none of her wanker friends, who don't know what all to do now that they know the truth about where it was they pulled her away from. Gotta be a relief, getting away from their confusion and worry. Yeah, it was only going to be a matter of time. And hell, I knew she'd come to me even before she ever admitted that she might love me back. Whatever she said the night after, when she'd had all the hours of the day to think up reasons to avoid me, it was always her coming to me. Her needing what I could give her. I knew I would get what I wanted eventually. Just a matter of time, and until then, it was just a matter of enjoying the ride.

Those clean kisses that she gave me, though, they were like nothing I had ever had before. I never thought something like that could make my cold body get so hot, but she was like fire against me skin. Those kisses hit me like fresh blood to the system, a rush like nothing else I've ever had. Killing slayers wasn't ever the high that just kissing Buffy was. Can't even remember how long it's been since I just kissed someone, without it going any farther. Things have always gone farther. I was so ready after that first kiss, all deep and starving, like I was the only thing she needed, I could have taken her than and there if she had let me. Dank alley, singing friends and all. But all we did was kiss. Kissing her some new kind of game, even if I did get pissed every time she ended it too soon. Even when she ran, even when she left me with my borrowed blood burning in my veins for her, even that was a turn-on, the anger, the want, all mixed together. That's a familiar feeling, one of my darker tastes, and so even that kept me ready for more. It helped that there was no missing that every time she came to me, each time she touched me, she went farther, which was like a whole new kind of pain, and still managed to make me hopeful that one day, someday, I might get all of her. And until then... well, I've been around awhile now, and I knew what to do if I can't get a woman. God knows I had enough fantasies of the Slayer and all the ways that I could take her, to last me into my next century. And each one is different from the next, and hotter.

None of my fantasies were like that first time, though; it never even occurred to me to dream of anything that wicked, that wild. My dreams were of different things. I never knew the Slayer had tastes like that. Didn't even think she knew that she had a liking for the dark. Least ways, not this dark. Angelus had told me enough about her that she had seemed more like the romance and flowers type of girl, violins on the CD player and all that rot. Thought she was this big romantic. More the fool, me. When she took me that first time, I about died again from the shock of it, coming on top of that brutal fight we'd been having, what, all of two minutes before? If I had known she got off on pain, I would have been in her years ago and that's the pure truth. Pain is easy for me, practiced. I was trying to figure out that whole sweetness and light deal like her other men gave her. That first time, thought, I think she was as surprised as me; god knows she looked as startled as I must have, before the greed got the better of both us, and things got a little blurry, between the sex and the building collapsing and all those amazingly wicked and dirty things that she whispered in my ears. All those things she told me she wanted and then proceeded to do to me.

Sure, it's not what I expected to have with her, but I'm no so proud, or such a fool, to turn down the only thing she's ever offered me. It may not have been what I thought I wanted, but there was no denying that she left me wanting more. Though I gotta be honest, I didn't think she'd be back real soon after that first time. She looked pretty shocked with herself the next morning, and she touched her bruises like she had never been hurt before. Me, I kinda liked the ones she left on my body. Never thought I could meet a human who could hurt me so well. Turned me on again, just looking at the marks she left on me. Turned me on even more to see the ones I left on her. Not a doubt in the world, but that she looked sexy when all I had to do was look to see how rough she'd been tumbled. And maybe there was the smallest chance that I had gotten carried away last night, myself, lost in how wonderful it was to get any part of the old me. But how was I supposed to help myself? Every time I even thought about lightening things up a bit, every time I tried to be gentle, she showed me again how little she wanted it. How much self-control did she think a vampire had? All things considered, I didn't think she'd come back till see was starving for it again. Figured looking like that would be enough to keep her away until she healed.

But she did come back, before the bruises even faded. I could see them all over her skin, the faintest green, the palest yellow. All the colors of my older loves. And she keeps coming back, though it gets uglier with every passing time. Even I'm starting to get surprised by how dark things are turning between us, and there's a thought that I never thought that I'd have.

I never know when she's going to come for me again. There is never any reason in her actions, only need, blind and greedy. Some nights I'm not even sure if I'm real to her, or if I'm just something that she wants to get off on, another toy. If she wants a toy that badly, it's not like I wouldn't nick her any little gadget that she wants. But it's me that she wants, 'cause all the toys in the world won't mark her like I do, hurt her the way it seems like only I'm able to. In the darkest hours while she sleeps, tired and spent against my back, I wonder if she even sees me or is it someone else she's fucking in her mind? Does she even know know who it is she's coming to, or are there other nights, where she finds someone closer? Someone crueler? Am I the only one? Other nights, I tell myself it's everything else in the world that's invisible to her, and that I'm the only real thing. Stands to reason; it's not like she can feel anything else. It's not like any one else even tries to meet her halfway. Whichever way it goes, though, I know I'd have to be about a thousand times stronger to send her packing. It's not like I don't want this as much as she does, it's not like I have it in me to say no to her. Not when I've been wanting this so long. I'd be lying if I said this is how I dreamed it would, but like I said, I'm not a fool and I'm not so proud, not when it comes to her.

Never thought she'd be a girl who'd want to be marked, but there's barely a part of her body where you can't see that I've touched her. I look at her amazing body, black and blue under her clothes from where I've touched and taken her and I have to admit, it makes me ready to go again, even harder than before. Bruises like night blooming flowers all over her skin, and I know that I'm the one who gave the to her. Sure, it's not what I envisioned with her, a thousand times a day, it's not how I thought she would make me feel, but it's everything I've already learned of love and the only thing I know how to give her. At least what she wants from me is something I know I can give her. What can I say? I'm a creature of my habits, and a hundred plus years is a hard habit to break. Especially when she's begging for it. She begs, she does. Any time I think that I've gone too far, that I've hurt her too much, she just pleads to me for more. She gives me a run for my money, on the whole perversion scale, and that's a fact.

She comes to me in the quiet of the night, and she's as silent as the stars. She never speaks, just offers me her body because she knows that I'll take it. But I'm starting to wish for more, which is something that I never thought that I would say. Every time I offer her my love, my dead heart to match my cold body, she just shakes her head and reminds me that she wants the pain. I guess I should feel glad that it's me she wants to hurt her, that I'm the one she comes to so she's able to feel anything. But I wanted to give her more than pain. I wanted to make her happy.

Yeah, that's right, I'm the Big Bad, trouble walking, and my most wicked fantasy is that someday, I might make the slayer look at me with love in her eyes and a smile on her face. I wanna hear her laugh, I wanna see her do human things with me. She got me started on those sweet kisses, those gentle touches like the people in movies do, and I want more of that. I want the sweet pain of knowing it might be hours before I get mine, just because we're going so slowly. I want candles, and all that other sodding stuff. I want her hand in mine, while we go walking the down the street.

So every night she comes back, and offers me the only thing that she can, it gets harder and harder to give her what she wants. Every night, it's more of effort to hurt, because what I really want to do is to kiss it all better. Yeah, I know what I want, and I'm starting to think that I might have been better off with dreams of her. At least in my dreams she loved me and she accepted the fact that I love her. Now I'm just another thing that hurts her.

One of these days, I'm gonna be a man and say no. One of these days, I'm gonna to walk away and wait until she can love me back.

_I know I should go,  
But I follow you like a man possessed.  
There's a traitor here beneath my breast  
And it hurts me more than you've ever guessed.  
If my heart could beat it would break my chest...  
But I can see you're unimpressed,  
So leave me be._

"Rest in Peace"Joss Whedon


End file.
